Just in case you don’t recognize Dennis...

Just in case you don’t recognize Dennis Woodruff when he drives down the street, he has thoughtfully covered his car with dozens of publicity stills of himself, as well as his phone number and agent’s name.

Woodruff, 29, is an aspiring actor.

“I’m trying to create an aura, like James Dean,” he explains.

Most mornings, he and his aura drive from his apartment into Hollywood, where he leaves his car in a lot next to Mann’s Chinese Theater. Then he takes a bus home and sits by the phone, waiting for his big break. At day’s end, his girlfriend takes him back to Hollywood, where he picks up his car (after paying $4) and drives it home.

“I want the public to know me--that’s the essence of entertainment,” he points out.

He admits that his car hasn’t brought him any casting calls, but says he’s surviving by finding occasional bit roles (“Robo Cop 2” and TV’s “Quantum Leap”).

In the meantime, camera-toting tourists snap away in the parking lot next to Mann’s all day.

Woodruff’s car, at least, has become a star.

In L.A., you never know who’s going to make it into show biz. For instance, El Teatro de la Realidad (Theatre of Reality), will offer free performances June 29-30 of “Where the Gods Walk,” a play about the street vendors who live and work in L.A.

Not only will some vendors perform in the showings at the L.A. Photography Center and Barnsdall Park’s Gallery Theater, but they will also sell their ice creams and hot dogs to spectators.

Election analysts who broke the results down by issue and voter category may have neglected one angle in the state attorney general’s race.

During the primary campaign, a spokesman for Democratic hopeful Ira Reiner scornfully referred to rival Arlo Smith, who sports about as much hair as your Only in L.A. correspondent, as “Potato Head.”

Reiner, the silver-thatched L.A. County district attorney, was then upset by Smith, his San Francisco counterpart. And now Reiner, no doubt, is haunted by the possibility that he lost as the result of the baldy backlash.

Speaking of vicious stereotypes, the L.A. Downtown News was criticized this week by a letter writer who was upset because the newspaper reported that one local activist “looks like a librarian . . . a bit rumpled, a bit aloof.”

The writer wrote: “Remember what happened to Andy Rooney? Librarians don’t have ‘a look,’ and they take special pains not to be ‘rumpled’ or ‘aloof.’ ”

No Rooney-type suspension seems forthcoming. The News said, “We did not receive any other letters complaining about our abuse of librarians.”

But back to Potato Head:

A KFWB news announcer reported that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dianne Feinstein will be running “against Pete Smith.” That’s news to Arlo Wilson.

MiscelLAny:

When Dollar Rent-a-Car opened in 1966, you could rent a Volkswagen bug for $1 a day. Dollar’s current daily rate for an economy model is $29.95.